Who is fighting against whom in Ukraine?

Photo: EPA-EFE / ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO

Fierce fighting and political tensions have been raging around eastern Ukraine in recent weeks. But it is not entirely clear who the confronting parties are, as confusion grows and the information war intensifies.

The ambiguity, according to those familiar with the situation, is understandable, given that Ukraine is a divided country in an increasingly divided Europe.
Is this a conflict between Kiev and Donbas, between Ukraine and Russia, between Ukraine and NATO or between NATO and Russia?

The Minsk agreement on resolving the conflict, which has been approved by the UN, identifies only two domestic warring parties - Kiev and the two self-proclaimed breakaway republics of Donbas, Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia insists the agreement should be implemented and classifies the war as an internal conflict, while NATO continues to present the conflict as an exclusive rivalry between Ukraine and Russia, undermining the pact, writes Russia Today.

Map of Ukraine / Photo Profimedia

Divided country on a divided continent

 

For more than a thousand years, Russians and Ukrainians have been united by a common history, and for centuries they have even been part of the same state. Recent history with Russia has produced two incompatible national identities and nation-building paths. The pluralist view considers Ukraine to be a biethnic, bicultural and bilingual state, while the monistic view envisions integral nationalism in which at its core there is only one ethnicity, one culture and one language.

In general, most Western Ukrainians see a common history with Russia as an imperial legacy to be overcome, and are therefore deeply skeptical of Eastern Ukrainians. Similarly, most in the East view close ties with Russia as brotherly and do not trust those in the West with their strong ethno-nationalist approach to nation-building and fascist history.
There was only one solution to these internal contradictions - to establish Ukraine as a sovereign state independent of Russia, but not on an anti-Russian platform., writes Rasha Today

Photo: Martin Bertrand / Alamy / Alamy / Profimedia

Ukraine's future is further complicated by the fact that it is on the border of a divided Europe. A mutually acceptable solution after the Cold War was never reached because the West excluded Russia from the new Europe. After that, the Orwellian concept of zero-sum "European integration" was promoted, in which all European countries must separate themselves from Russia as the largest countries in Europe, and instead seek leadership in NATO and the EU. Simply put, the West and Ukraine's monistic ethno-cultural nationalists are companions in terms of an exclusive approach to nation-building and the region: a Ukraine that oppresses eastern Ukrainians, integrated into Europe cleansed of all Russian history and influence.

Both Western and Russian analysts believe that war could easily become inevitable. At home, eastern Ukrainians protesting against the legitimacy of the Western-backed Maidan in 2014 were attacked by the new authorities in Kiev. At the regional level, Russia will not stand aside if Kiev, armed with NATO, attacks Donbas. Moreover, Russia considers NATO enlargement to Ukraine an existential threat and will oppose it, just as the United States could not accept Cuban Soviet missiles in 1962. NATO now declares that it "stands by Ukraine", although in reality NATO has put Ukraine on the path to self-destruction, are part of the conclusions of media geostrategic analyzes.

Ukrainian soldiers defend Donbas / 2018 / Photo: EPA-EFE / MARKIIAN LYSEIKO

Domestic conflict?

The 2015 Minsk agreement, approved by the UN, defined war as an internal conflict with domestic solutions. The agreement stipulates that Kiev must engage diplomatically with Donbass to give the region autonomy, and only then will breakaway leaders give Kiev control over Ukraine's international borders. In addition to resolving opposing views on nation-building, the solution to federalism also addresses the issue of building the region, as decentralized power in a federalized Ukraine would prevent access to either the Western bloc or the Russian-led bloc.

The Minsk agreement can be reasonably criticized because it does not address the role of foreign actors. Moscow's red lines imply that Russia is a participant in the conflict, but that means that NATO should also be identified as a participant. The West backed a coup in 2014 and backed Kiev's "anti-terrorist operations" against eastern Ukrainians who opposed Kiev's Maidan Square. NATO is also setting the stage for a military solution against Donbas by sanctioning Russia, arming Ukraine and refusing to put pressure on Kiev to meet its Minsk agreement obligations.

The hostility to the Minsk agreement is also evident from the unwillingness of the Western political-media class to inform its public about the details of the Minsk agreement and Kiev's open refusal to respect it. Instead, the Western political-media class unfairly suggests that Russia is not adhering, even though Russia is not even mentioned in the Minsk agreement, say Russian analysts.

The conflict between Ukraine and Russia?

Russia accuses Kiev and NATO of trying to redefine the war as a conflict between Ukraine and Russia is a cynical attempt to undermine the Minsk agreement and deprive Eastern Ukrainians of any role by degrading them into ordinary Russian agents. allowing the military bloc to rebrand itself into just "standing by" Ukraine. This fits in with Western propaganda, which described the 2014 coup as a "democratic revolution" and the will of the Ukrainian people, while opposition to the coup was delegitimized as just a Russian "hybrid war."

Moscow notes that the Donbas conflict is presented as a conflict between Ukraine and Russia. According to the Russian authorities, this means that a broader approach should be taken to resolve the war in Ukraine.
Many world analysts believe that lasting peace requires international actors such as Russia and NATO to identify themselves as participants in the Ukraine crisis. If the policy of portraying the conflict as merely a conflict between Ukraine and Russia continues, or Moscow's accusations that the West wants to use Ukraine in a showdown with Russia, tensions and the danger of war are more certain.

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